_First_.--If the Parliament Bill passes into law the existing
majority of the House of Commons will be able to force, and will
assuredly in fact force, through Parliament any Home Rule Bill
whatever (even were it the Home Rule Bill of 1893), which meets
with the approval of Mr. Redmond, and obtains the acquiescence of
the rest of the Coalition.

The Coalition need not fear any veto of the House of Lords. There
will be no necessity for an appeal to the electors, or in other
words to the nation. The truth of this statement is indisputable.
The legal right of the majority of the House of Commons to pass any
bill whatever into law, even though the House of Lords refuse its
assent, is absolutely secured by the very terms of the Parliament
Bill. That the leaders of the Coalition, such as Mr. Asquith, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. John Redmond, will press their
legal right to its extreme limits is proved to any man who knows
how to read the teaching of history, by the experience of 1893. Mr.
Gladstone used every power he possessed, and used it
unscrupulously, to drive a Home Rule Bill through the House of
Commons. He was a man trained in the historical traditions of
Parliament. He assuredly did not relish the use of the closure and
the guillotine. He was supported in the Commons by a very narrow
majority, never I think exceeding forty-eight, and often falling
below that number. The power of the party system, or as Americans
say, the "Machine," was admittedly much less in 1893 than it has
become in 1911. Yet Mr. Gladstone used such power as he possessed
to the utmost. He hurried through the House of Commons a Bill
which had not in fact received the assent of the nation. He made
the freest use of every device for curtailing freedom of debate. A